Side Story 12

Duke McKinnon’s mansion was thrown into an uproar after the Princess suddenly collapsed.

The skilled physician who lived on the estate to care for the three-year-old twins—the family’s beloved grandsons—rushed over at once. When the physician couldn’t determine the cause, a priest from a nearby village was summoned. When even the priest could offer only an unsatisfying answer, the Emperor flew into a rage.

“Why don’t you know? Are you saying my daughter has fallen victim to some poison from the great families?!”

Back when the Empire had been called Bistor, many great families possessed esoteric poisons that physicians and ordinary priests couldn’t detect. Those families had all fallen, but who could guarantee their creations hadn’t leaked out somewhere and vanished without a trace?

It was a suspicion one could entertain. The fallen great noble houses would all have their grudges against the imperial family. Yet the high-ranking priest who had been hurriedly brought in only trembled and tilted his head in confusion.

“It doesn’t seem to be that kind of problem. Rather… it appears to be extremely high magic.”

“Is it a curse?” the Empress asked, her face pale. The priest grimaced.

“I doubt there exists a human curse caster capable of high magic of this level. It seems to have been cast with near-legendary magical energy and an extremely complex magic formula. I am not an expert in magic, so it would be best to summon a court mage and ask.”

‘Legendary,’ ‘human’…

Cledwyn made a face like he was choking, while Nerys’s expression suddenly steadied.

First, she had everyone except her husband leave the room. Then, gazing at Arbiyone lying quietly on the guest bed in Duke McKinnon’s mansion, she asked Cledwyn,

“Do you think it’s ‘that’?”

“What’s ‘that’?”

Still too agitated to think properly, Cledwyn asked reflexively—then suddenly realized. His roughly contorted face went blank for a moment.

“Dragon magic? Has Arbiyone entered your memories now?”

Before the war ended, Nerys had been trapped inside her most horrific memories by the Curse of Sealing Camille cast. Because the mage who cast the curse had died, Cledwyn entered her memories to find his wife.

It was Arbiyone who prevented Cledwyn from losing his sense of self and becoming just another character in the memory, overwhelmed by the coercive force within it. At the time, she had been only a fetus in Nerys’s womb, yet she became a light and spent about eighteen years with Cledwyn. He’d been told that the Arbiyone of that time was a personality summoned from several years after her birth, made possible by the Power of Time contained in the Gray Jewel Eye.

Perhaps that fluttering ball of light—Arbiyone—had been the very consciousness of the child now sleeping.

“Isn’t it possible? She became like this while she was surrounded only by people we trust. The Silver Moon was dismantled long ago, and the Power of Pheros—the source of the sealing magic—has been released. High mages are thoroughly investigated to prevent misuse and treated well at court. It would be difficult for a human enemy to pull off something like this.”

“I see.”

Cledwyn took a deep breath at his wife’s words. Then, sitting down slowly on the bed where his precious daughter lay, he pressed his forehead to his hand.

“If that’s really the case… what happens? She won’t have to sleep for eighteen years, will she?”

“I asked Kien-nim about it before. Just as we woke up after a few days back then, Yoni will wake up soon, too, and she won’t remember anything.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Yes. But just in case it isn’t that, there’s one way to check.”

Biting her lip—she’d been gnawing at it so hard it was starting to bleed—Nerys spoke decisively.

“First, let’s contact Penmewick with the Communication Device and send an envoy to Draycum. We should have Kien-nim take a look.”

❖ ❖ ❖

“Oppa.”

Joybel answered his younger sister Larabelle’s gloomy voice with a troubled heart.

“What?”

“Pwincess sick… (Princess sick…)?”

“It seems so. You mustn’t go into the Princess’s room, okay?”

“Ung…”

Larabelle was strong-willed by nature. She loved her brother and followed him everywhere, but when it mattered, she stubbornly did as she pleased. And because she knew her brother, her parents, and even her maternal relatives would dote on her, she was bold enough to act as though the world belonged to her.

But even she couldn’t frolic freely when the entire mansion was steeped in gloom. Larabelle felt inexplicably cowed and lowered her head. Her round face—an exact copy of her mother, Dianne Wirtham—looked dejected as she glanced around.

Feeling sorry for her, Joybel held out his arms.

“Come here, Belle.”

Larabelle threw herself into her brother’s embrace. Joybel patted her back and whispered, steady and gentle, like an adult.

“It’s okay. The Princess will get better soon. Didn’t I get better right away when I caught a cold last time? Let’s play quietly by ourselves. Let’s call the other kids, too. This is our house, so we should be good hosts to our guests.”

He stumbled over one pronunciation, but Joybel’s words came out smooth and mature. Larabelle nodded.

“Ung.”

Stronger than most children his age, Joybel picked up his sister. Larabelle’s chubby feet dangled about a hand’s span above the floor, swinging back and forth as he headed toward the nursery.

Then something like a skirt hem slipped into his vision.

‘A skirt hem?’

Joybel looked up.

No, it wasn’t a skirt hem. It looked like the long robes priests wore, but not white—this was a mage’s robe dyed brown.

Joybel had seen someone wearing clothes like that before. A little frightened, but more excited than anything, he shouted,

“Kien-nim!”

The dragon Kien carried the same extraordinarily beautiful yet strange aura as always. She looked down at the siblings and smiled.

“Seeing your faces, you must be the cheeky glasses-wearer and the cute one’s children. Has it been a year? Human children really do grow fast.”

Though Kien made Draycum—a dragon’s declared domain—her base, she frequently appeared in human society. Unlike when she ruled the continent, her excuse now was that she had nothing to do and was bored.

She sought out Arbiyone and her siblings especially often, as descendants of her friend, and in doing so had become acquainted with Joybel and his sister as well. She usually wandered around under a false identity in search of “amusement,” but to the children, she revealed her true one.

At the mention of growing, Joybel lifted his chin proudly.

Around then, the unfamiliar face standing behind Kien also caught his eye.

“Who are you?”

The man—also wearing a robe like Kien’s—was dazzlingly beautiful. His ear tips were pointed and long. His eyes were green like Joybel’s and Larabelle’s, but the aura he gave off was entirely different.

The man…

Was like a tree.

Joybel had heard of such a race from Arbiyone, who loved reading. His mouth fell open.

‘An Elf.’

Among Elves, the most intelligent and noble clan. The forest people.

Kien chuckled and introduced him.

“He is my Guardian. He’s been busy catching monster scum in the Lair since he woke up, but now he has some leisure, so I’m showing him the world a bit. I also happened to have business with little Elandria.”

By “little Elandria,” she meant Arbiyone. According to what Kien had told only the children in secret, Arbiyone was supposedly the spitting image of the legendary hero Elandria—not in appearance, but in her adventurous and willful nature.

At those words, Joybel brightened.

“Kien-nim, Her Highness the Princess is sick right now. She collapsed and can’t get up. Can’t you use Healing on her, Kien-nim?”

An adult might have questioned why Kien came to the McKinnon duchy instead of Penmewick to find Arbiyone. But Joybel had no such doubts. The adults would handle it.

Kien looked down, amused by the bold little one who dared tell a dragon what magic to use. If he were an adult, she might have blown him away, but dragons were weak to children—weak as they were to hatchlings.

“It’s not something cured by Healing. Out of courtesy, I showed the generosity of teleporting to the entrance of this house, but no one properly guided me. Child, where is little Elandria?”

❖ ❖ ❖

When the door opened and the face beyond it appeared, Nerys sprang up from her seat.

“Kien-nim.”

“Child of Elandria.”

The guest room where Arbiyone lay was quiet. Earlier, Nerys had dismissed all the physicians and priests, leaving only the couple behind—and even Cledwyn had just stepped out to contact Penmewick.

If they contacted Penmewick now, she’d thought, wouldn’t it take days for a messenger to reach Draycum? Nerys didn’t understand, but Kien’s quick arrival was a blessing.

“Please come in.”

“Tsk. What’s with that face? It’s nothing serious.”

At those words, Nerys’s throat tightened and she covered her mouth. Kien’s relaxed tone washed relief over her in a single tide.

“Then… is it true my daughter has gone into the past?”

“Yes. My past self pulled the child from around this time. I came thinking it would be good if I lent a hand once more. Where has the child of Pheros gone?”

“My husband has gone to contact Penmewick. Since we knew nothing, we wished to ask you, Kien-nim, but you came to us first. We sincerely thank you.”

Following Kien into the guest room was a green-haired Elf youth. Nerys had never seen him before, but she could guess who he was.

“You must be Kien-nim’s Guardian.”

“With my insufficient self, I serve the great one.”

The Guardian’s voice was clear and melodious—like leaves brushing together in a gentle breeze, or raindrops falling on a deep lake. Pleasant to hear, yet unmistakably non-human. His appearance was as beautiful as a sculpture, and a smile lingered at the corner of his mouth, but like Kien, he was somehow different from humans.

While Nerys and the Guardian exchanged greetings, Kien strode to the bed and placed her hand on Arbiyone’s forehead. A golden magic circle rose around Kien’s robe, emitting a soft light.

After a moment, the magic circle vanished, and Kien withdrew her hand. Nerys hurried over, anxious.

“Is it over? Kien-nim, if my daughter is seeing my past in a dream, will it take several more days for her to wake up?”

“Yes, it’s over. I told you not to worry. For this child, the years within your memory will be nothing but a vague dream. Isn’t it said that a long dream brings long sleep? One can spend ten thousand years in a short nap, but upon opening their eyes, they forget what they did in the dream and return to life.”

Relief sank deep into Nerys’s bones.

Sure enough, soon after, Arbiyone made a soft sound—“Umm”—and smacked her lips the way she always did when waking. Then she slowly opened her eyes.

“Yoni!”

All that worry proved pointless. Nerys hugged Arbiyone with pure joy, expecting her daughter to start her day as usual—planting a big kiss on her mother.

But Arbiyone shoved her mother away at once. Before Nerys could even process it, Arbiyone sat up abruptly and grabbed both of her mother’s cheeks in her hands.

“Mommy! Mommy, are you okay?”

A beat later, Nerys realized Arbiyone’s face—staring at her in urgency—was drenched in tears.

Startled, Nerys nodded blankly.

“Yes. Mommy is… okay. Yoni, why are you crying?”

Nerys knew Arbiyone had seen her past with Cledwyn.

But hadn’t Kien-nim said she wouldn’t remember?

When Nerys glanced over, Kien only shrugged.

“She’ll forget it all soon. Can’t be helped if some emotion lingers.”

Is that all you have to say? Nerys’s eyebrow twitched.

Just then, Dora’s voice came from outside.

“Your Majesty, I apologize for the situation, but Her Highness Princess Maeve is looking for Her Majesty the Empress too much…”

Of course she was. Maeve hadn’t seen her mother for hours since Arbiyone collapsed.

Nerys started to turn toward the door, but Arbiyone—still sobbing—clung to her, preventing her from moving.

“Yoni, Maeve is here. Let Mommy go soothe Maeve for a bit, and then we’ll talk, okay?”

“No! You can’t! Mommy, stay with me. Don’t go to Maeve!”

Nerys blinked in surprise. Arbiyone loved her younger sibling dearly, and she was past the age of clinging to her mother like this. She still loved her mother most in the world, of course—but she’d never been possessive to the point of keeping her one-year-old sibling away.

But after what she might have seen in the past…

Who could blame her?

“Dora,” Nerys called back, “I’ll come later.”

Then she hugged Arbiyone first.

The part of her embrace where her daughter’s face pressed against her became drenched through.